This invention relates to an apparatus for wetting adhesive on items being folded by a folding machine, and particularly to an apparatus allowing mailers to be folded, closed and sealed in one operation.
Folding machines are often used today to fold items such as mailers in high volume. This not only saves labor, but provides consistently folded items which are attractive in appearance. However, the folded items often must still be placed in envelopes and/or sealed for a variety of reasons such as for mailing or to hide confidential information. This secondary operation can be labor intensive and time consuming.
One way of solving these problems has been to automatically wet adhesive placed on the items and then sealingly press the items closed thereby forming finished product ready to be distributed. However, problems exist with present apparatus and methods of wetting the adhesive. The applicators typically use a wick-type applicator which tends to gum up. Further, present applicators require frequent maintenance such as constant manual refill, also present applicators are often not able to apply fluid reliably when processing items at high speeds. Further, the applicators are often difficult to reliably adjust, are bulky and are inflexible in use. This can result in difficult maintenance problems.